As the days ripened towards Midsummer, whispers of the fate of the Ravens’ rebellion circulated through the land. Eilan had hoped that the Governor would forbid public assemblies in response to the rising, but it seemed that the official line was to discourage popular support by refusing to recognize that anything was wrong. But from the refugees, Eilan learned that Cynric had gone back to his friends in the North and raised a force from the survivors of Mons Graupius with men of the Ravens to lead them. That was easy enough, for the Romans had simply withdrawn from the desert they had made, leaving the people with nothing to sustain them but their hatred.
But then he had attempted to raise Brigantia, where the severity with which Venutius’s rebellion had been put down had been followed by some attempt to rebuild the province. It was probably some man of the Brigantes, thought Eilan, or perhaps, remembering Cartimandua, a woman who had betrayed them, having decided that a limited prosperity in chains was preferable to the Roman sword.
By ones and twos more of the Ravens made their way southward, anguished by grief or sullen with despair. They were tended by Eilan’s most trustworthy women, given new names and clothing and sent on their way. They told her that Cynric was still in the North with a remnant of unwounded men, being hunted by a special detachment from the Legions. The Caledonians had melted back into their hills, but the Ravens were clanless men, and had no homes to flee to when they could fight no more.
The ones who came to the Forest House were only Cynric’s age, but hardship had made old men of them. Eilan looked at them with anguish, for some, like her own Gawen, showed their Roman blood in their faces. In her vision, she had seen that it was necessary for the blood of Rome and the tribes to mingle. But the Merlin had not said whether this would occur in friendship or through generation after generation in which men planted their seed and died, leaving grieving women to carry on.
Ardanos and Lhiannon, remembering the rape of Mona, had chosen a policy of accommodation as the lesser evil; her father and Cynric seemed to feel that death was preferable to slavery. As Eilan watched Gawen grow, she knew only that she would protect her child.
And so the lengthening days brought them at last to Midsummer, and the priestesses of the Forest House went out to the Hill of the Maidens to perform the ritual.
Even from the avenue Eilan could see the glow of the great bonfires atop the mound, and the fiery arcs the torches traced against the dark sky. The drums pulsed with a heavy insistence, their beat deepening to thunder as the young men of the countryside competed to toss their torches highest. Kings and armies might come and go, but the real struggle – sometimes it seemed to Eilan the only struggle that mattered – was the one that men waged each year to protect their fields and nurture the young crops.
In the distance she could hear the lowing of the cattle that had already been protected by driving them between the sacred fires; she smelled woodsmoke and cooked meat and the sharp fragrance of mugwort and hypericum from her garland.
“Oh look,” said Senara, beside her. “See how high they are throwing the torches, like shooting stars!”
“May the crops grow as high as the torches rise!” Caillean answered her.
They had brought a bench for Eilan to sit on until it was time for the rite of the Oracle; she huddled there gratefully, letting the murmured conversation of the other women eddy around her. It was not only the crops that were growing, she thought, listening to Senara’s commentary. The frightened eight-year-old who had been given into her care five years ago was becoming a leggy maiden with a promise of beauty in her long bones and amber hair.
There was a last crescendo from the hill, and then the fires appeared to explode outwards as lads snatched brands from the bonfires and raced down the hill in every direction to bear their Protecting sun-power to the fields. The drumming settled to a hypnotic heartbeat, and Eilan felt the familiar flutter of approaching trance.